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Article Excerpt
ABSTRACT
This paper uses a sociological perspective to explore the way that young people talk about wellbeing. It draws on interviews with 62 young people from a Victorian regional centre. The interviews are explored using the theory of individualisation, which suggests that people increasingly feel responsible for their own life outcomes. However, this theory is critiqued and built upon because it obscures non-rational (or embodied) aspects of experience that are also important to the participants. I argue that wellbeing for young people involves finding a balance between taking responsibility for uncertain personal outcomes and finding time for embodied enjoyment of the present. Understanding this balance from young people's perspectives suggests new approaches to research and policy.
Keywords: youth; health and wellbeing; responsibility; embodiment; individualisation
INTRODUCTION
During the 20th century there was a mounting push in health fields for the recognition of a link between health, social and environmental contexts. This shift in focus is labelled the 'new public health' (2). Concomitantly, the term wellbeing was increasingly used as a way to differentiate the various broader social approaches from the previously dominant medical model of health. The term wellbeing is used in different ways by different researchers, policy makers and health practitioners. However, wellbeing usually refers to more than physical health and includes mental health, social connectedness and environmental factors. The increasing use of the concept wellbeing, with its expanded focus, means that many different actors from diverse fields, such as medicine, psychology, the community sector and policy, are involved with attempting to influence the population's health and wellbeing (3). Moreover, significant research, money and time are spent on interventions to improve the health and wellbeing of Australians. However. this money is not spread evenly, as both government and private interests that control funding consider the wellbeing of some groups to be more at risk, and more politically and socially valuable, than others (4).
YOUNG PEOPLE AT RISK
Young people, in particular, are the focus of concern and intervention. In policy and research, this group is often portrayed as at risk of significantly damaging the contribution to society that they will make later in life. This is particularly the case in the economic sector because they are not concerned about their future and they take unnecessary risks (5). Many different stakeholders, including researchers, policy makers, social and youth workers, doctors and teachers, are involved in deciding which areas of young people's wellbeing are problematic and deserving of intervention. The focus of interventions tends to be on such behaviours as binge drinking, truancy or depression. These problem behaviours link in with a general public discourse that sees young people's behaviour, particularly alcohol and other drug use or presence in unsupervised public places, as a danger to both their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others (6). This model can validate increasing surveillance of young people and restrictions on their use of public space as important measures to safeguard their wellbeing (7). The views of young people themselves are mostly absent from research and policy (8). While binge drinking and other 'concern' areas have real effects on some people and their communities, these areas may not be those that young people find most important (9). Programs and policies drawing on the meanings, concerns and values of young people, as well as those of health professionals and the broader community, are more likely to be accepted by and engage young people (10).
RESEARCHING WELLBEING
Most of the research into young people's wellbeing comes from either a psychological or epidemiological perspective. The dominant model of research in young people's health and wellbeing investigates their behaviour and life circumstances, such as socio-demographic variables, to correlate 'risk' and 'protective' factors for certain predefined problem behaviours (11). While this approach has made many useful contributions, it tends to be more interested in what young people do than what they think (12). This research is strongly influenced by the assumption that so-called objective science is the only way to provide answers on how young people's wellbeing can be improved. This allows researchers to ignore or discredit the 'non scientific' meanings and values of young people as values are not considered to impact on research. When young people's views are investigated, it is often on the assumption that these views are false and, if known, can be corrected (13). Investigating young people's views can help highlight the social values and concerns underpinning approaches to young people's health and wellbeing in policy and research.
There has been some genuine research interest in the perspectives of young people on wellbeing (14). However, as with most research in the field, this research tends to rely on quantitative surveys. Most researchers grew up under different social circumstances to those facing contemporary young people (15). Hence, researchers and young people may hold different assumptions about what it means to be young. Quantitative measures in particular predefine possible responses and may miss areas of experience that are important to young people but do not even occur to older researchers. If young people have different ideas about wellbeing, underpinned by different values to those of researchers and policy makers, programs to improve their wellbeing are unlikely to succeed, no matter how much money or time is invested (16). Using research methods that allow young people's perspectives to be heard and allow them to expand on the values behind their ideas is valuable for better program development and policy.
This paper is based on qualitative interviews with young people, exploring how they define wellbeing, and draws on sociological theory in an attempt to get a deeper insight into young people's experiences. The focus is on one particularly strong theme that emerged out of the interviews: personal responsibility. I argue that an overarching theme in the way young people live their lives and talk about wellbeing is one of trying to find a balance. Young people seek, and struggle to find, a balance between finding time for enjoyment; embodied and non-cognitive experience in the present; and the demand that they plan for an uncertain future.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
While this paper explores the meaning of wellbeing to young people, it is not possible, and arguably even advisable, for any analysis to be fully grounded in data, thereby ignoring existing research and theoretical positions. The theoretical framework for this research is the result of a spiral back and forward between a grounded understanding of interview data and social theory. The framework is built around the proposition that life in the contemporary social world is undergoing a process...
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